


snowed in

by Athina_Blaine



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Huddling For Warmth, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Season 3 esque, and they happened to find themselves a cold empty cabin, for dramatic narrative purposes, if jon took martin on one of his little vacations around the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25370260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athina_Blaine/pseuds/Athina_Blaine
Summary: "Do you think it's selfish? Trying to be happy?"-The snow is falling. Martin and Jon find themselves forced to stay for the night.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 64
Kudos: 511





	snowed in

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a prompt exchange with [skyberia.](https://skyberia.tumblr.com/) Our selected prompts: Huddling for Warmth and Mutual Pining. Check out skyberia's companion piece [here!](https://skyberia.tumblr.com/post/624028085106409472/part-of-a-prompt-exchange-with-athina-blaine)

“Give it a rest, Jon. The power in this place probably hasn’t worked in, like, ten years.”

Jon slammed the lip to the breaker shut, dragging a hand through his tangled hair and breathing out an angry puff of mist. Martin’s head was filled with the image of incensed ice dragons, which would have made him laugh if the situation weren’t so dire.

Wrapping his coat tighter around himself, Jon turned and stormed towards the front door. Martin’s eyebrows flew up. Oh, what the  _ hell  _ was he thinking of doing now?

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“If you remember, there was another cabin further up the forest path. We don’t have service so I’m going to use their landline and ring for help.”

“ _ Jon. _ ” Martin slapped his hand over the door before Jon could pull it open, earning himself a furious glare. “Those people were like three kilometres away and it’s  _ night-time, _ in the middle of a  _ freak blizzard. _ ”

“Yes, I believe I  _ have  _ noticed that, thank you.”

“Then I’m sure you’re perfectly aware you’ll get turned into an  _ icicle _ before you make it down the drive.”

A muscle twitched in Jon’s face and he tugged at the door, but Martin held firm. It really amazed Martin, sometimes, how often such a brilliant man could be gripped by these stupid, dangerous impulses. Yeah, sure, putting himself in harm's way to protect someone else was one of his more admirable qualities, but  _ still. _

Martin sighed.

“Look, Basira knows where we were going. She’ll come looking for us when we don’t meet her at the motel tomorrow. We should just focus on making it through the night.”

Grinding his teeth, Jon looked out the window.

The storm had taken them completely by surprise. Martin had even checked the forecast. It had seemed like a good idea before lugging themselves all the way to the Russian frontier and, still, they had been unprepared.

Now, it blanketed the entire outside world in a thick, impenetrable wall of white, trapping them for the foreseeable future. It was … less than ideal. Especially since Jon seemed to be inching closer and closer to full on snap these days, like a rubber band being stretched thin.

Martin hoped it wasn’t an omen of more bad things to come. Although, who was he kidding, he didn’t need an omen to know  _ that. _

Finally, Jon relented, slowly lowering his hand from the door. Martin let out a relieved breath.

“Good.” Clapping his hands, he turned back towards the living room. “Now, how about we try getting a fire going in that grate?”

Jon faced the door for a moment longer, lips twisted, before his shoulders slumped. He followed Martin back to the living room.

Good news; they got the fire going.

Bad news; having only been able to find the lone loose scraps of paper and a single paper towel roll as kindling, it was weak, and gave off barely any heat.

Still, it was better than nothing. At the very least, it filled the abandoned cabin with a warm, gentle light, chasing away the cold dark of the night. It was also a far cry from the sterile light of their torches. Things almost felt a little homely. Well, as homely as one could be in a cabin stripped of all furniture that reportedly once belonged to a defector of a spooky clown circus.

It wasn’t the most cursed place Martin had ever been forced to occupy, but at least the archives had a cot.

Martin sat as close to the grate as he could, arms wrapped around his legs and resting his chin on his knees. It wasn’t long before he was fighting against drifting eyelids, jerking his head up with a tired sniffle.

A thump jolted him upright. It was shortly followed by an angry muttering, and Martin let out a long sigh. They had already scanned through the house five times and  _ still  _ Jon insisted combing through it. It was  _ really _ starting to stress Martin out, only because it was obvious that Jon was becoming more and more frayed with every pass that failed to reveal something.

Martin looked over his shoulder. Jon was shining his torch into the exposed area in the wall. When the man pulled a crowbar out of his pack, Martin sat up straight. When the hell had he brought  _ that? _

Jon slotted the crowbar in place. “I think there might be something back here.” With a grunt, he pushed all his weight against it. “Come over here and help me.”

“Jon, just, please, come over and sit by the fire already. You’re probably freezing.”

“Oh, yes, and that little spit roast is definitely going to warm me up.”

He was right, but he didn’t have to  _ say  _ it like that.

“It’s better than nothing.”

“If you’re not going to come over here—” The crowbar ripped the panel off and Jon lost his balance. “ _ Shit. _ ”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Jon turned to the small opening he had made, illuminating it with torchlight. There was nothing there except for fiberglass and foam insulation. Frown growing more severe, Jon shoved an arm inside, patting around the empty space, only to pull it back, stiff.

“I guess I was just seeing things.”

Grabbing his crowbar, he turned, but Martin stood and hurried over, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Jon,  _ please. _ If there was anything to find, we would have found it by now.”

“There has to be  _ something _ ,” Jon snapped, shoving his hand away. “Yanovich  _ must  _ have left something behind. Because if they didn’t, that makes all of this a waste of time, which is something we  _ don’t  _ have.”

“Sometimes a lead just goes cold. Maybe we can pick it back up somewhere else, but it happens. It’s  _ okay _ .”

“It’s  _ not  _ okay. In case you haven’t noticed, the  _ world  _ is about to end soon.”

“I  _ am  _ aware of that, actually, but  _ thank you  _ for talking to me like I’m some kind of brain-dead idiot.”

Jon blinked, the frenzied energy dropping off him and leaving something quieter and more shame-faced in its place. He lowered his eyes to the floor.

“I—” He rubbed the sleeve of his arm. “You’re not … I’m …"

“Please, just come and sit down. You’ve got to be exhausted after today.”

With a slow nod, Jon let himself be led to the fireplace, sinking to the floor with a weary sigh. Martin reached over to the pile of items they had found in the house, pulling out the chess set.

“Fancy a game?”

“Where did you get that?”

“Found it in that chest in the attic. Some of the pieces are missing, but I have some spare change we could use as replacements.”

Jon’s eyes flicked from the box to Martin’s face, before he looked away, face flushing.

“I, uh … actually don’t know how to play.”

Oh. Well, there’s a surprise. He’d honestly always pictured Jon as the sort to be the chess club president in primary.

A thought came to him and a corner of his mouth twitched upwards, but he smothered it before Jon could see.

“That’s alright. I can teach you the rules.”

And although it was a slight thing, Jon smiled, and, for Martin, the room lost a little bit of its chill.

Martin moved both his pawn and his ten pence forward two spaces, taking Jon’s knight.

“Okay, your go.”

Jon stared at the board, brow crinkled with a hand pressed to his jaw.

“Jon?”

“Sorry, I just …" Jon shook his head. “And you’re  _ sure  _ that’s a part of official rules?”

“Yep. If a pawn and a bishop are next to each other, they can go up two steps forward. It’s called ‘escorting’.”

“I know. It’s just … I figured I would have known about a rule like that.”

“How would you have heard about it if you’ve never played before?”

Jon shrugged helplessly. He leaned over to advance his rook, a tendril of loose hair falling over his face, and Martin entertained a brief fantasy of tucking it back behind his ear. He also found himself incredibly distracted by the way Jon was biting his lip, the way he did whenever he was concentrating particularly hard on something.

He was so distracted, in fact, that, when Jon exclaimed,  _ Ah-ha!  _ and moved his pawn one step backward to take Martin’s queen, he had to bodily pull his focus back to the game.

“Oy!” he said, pointing at the board. “What’s all that? You can’t move pawns backwards.”

“Excuse me, but I explicitly remember you stating otherwise.” Jon pointed to the bottle cap Martin had on his side. “That’s how you claimed my second bishop.”

Oh, damn.

Martin cleared his throat.

“Right, um. Sorry. I must have been thinking of some other game.”

Jon stared at him, eyes squinting, then removed his hand from the piece and took Martin’s 50 pence for his own. It really was a credit to Jon that he was doing so well, considering Martin was cheating out the arse. At this rate, Martin was going to have to resort to drastic measures.

He took stock of his remaining pieces and, picking up his rook, jumped over two of Jon’s pawns, his remaining knight, and his paperclip.

“Checkmate.”

“What the  _ hell _ was that?”

“Well, your pieces were all diagonal of each other, so I get to jump until I can’t anymore.”

“That’s  _ checkers _ .”

“Well, yeah, where do you think checkers got that rule? Did I not explain that earlier? I definitely should have.”

Martin tried to maintain his composure, he really did, but the sheer outrage of Jon’s tone and his wide, scandalized eyes finally broke him. He clapped a hand over his mouth, trying to smother his giggles, but it was too late.

“You  _ are  _ lying!” Jon said, voice cracking. Martin threw out his hands.

“In my defence, this is legitimately how me and Tim play chess.”

“Unbelievable.  _ Unbelievable. _ Start over.  _ No _ lying.”

“Okay, okay,” Martin said, resetting the board. “It was really only the thing with the bishop and the pawns going backwards. Everything else is—”

“And the knight.”

“What?”

“The way the knight moves. That weird little squiggly thing.”

“Um, no, actually, that’s just how it moves.”

Slowly, that little crinkle returned to Jon’s brow, and Martin shrugged.

“I can cross my heart and hope to die, if you’d like?”

Like a block of ice being struck, Jon’s incredulous expression cracked, melting into a grin. He laughed. He laughed harder. Then, he laughed so hard, he was nearly bent over himself, nearly breathless from the force of it.

It was infectious, and soon they were both laughing, Martin clutching his aching chest, delirious over their makeshift chess board, in front of their embarrassingly small fire, in their abandoned cabin in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually, they began to recover. The laughter trailed off. Jon’s smile slipped away.

He stared down at the board, lips twisting downwards into a frown. The burgeoning warmth in Martin’s chest cooled.

“Want to play again?” he tried. “I promise it’ll be 100% legitimate.”

“No, that’s alright,” Jon said, soft. “I, uh … really should be looking over my notes right now.”

Martin had predicted the outcome, but it still made his chest ache when Jon collected his pack and sat down outside the glow of the fire, pulling out his small, fraying notebook. Martin watched him for a moment, before turning back to the grate.

They tried to sleep. Key word being; tried.

Jon donated a few empty pages from his notebook to the fireplace, but it was still weak and struggled for life. Head propped on his backpack, Martin watched it flicker and pop, curling his coat tighter around himself. Come on, little fire. You can keep going for us, can’t you?

His back to Martin, Jon was balled up under his thin Londoner’s winter coat, which, even to Martin, was clearly even less suited to acting as a blanket than it was for braving the icy Russian countryside. But Jon said it was all he had, and besides, they weren’t going to be out here long anyway, he’d be fine.

The initial walk over had quickly proved the elements to be far more powerful than Jon had predicted, however, if his shivering and blue lips were anything to go by. But even as Martin offered his own wool coat, he insisted he was  _ fine _ .

Beautiful,  _ stupid _ man.

And now here he was, curled up on a cold, hard floor, without even the warmth of the sun.

Quietly, Martin rose to his knees. If he was sneaky, he could probably pull this off. Just as he shuffled his way over, though, prepped to drape his own coat over Jon, Jon snapped his head up. Martin yelped, jumping backwards.

They both were frozen on the spot, waiting for the other to move, before Jon let out a long sigh.

“In this s-s-situation, I believe it best to …  _ cccc _ combine our resources.”

Martin tilted his head, and Jon, through gritted teeth, hissed,

“ _ Get under here _ .”

Oh.  _ Oh! _

Yes, uh, that made sense. Perfect sense, actually.

Face hot, Martin did as told, pulling both of their jackets over themselves and settling down. He touched Jon’s arm and gasped.

“Jesus Christ, Jon, you’re freezing.”

“Really? C-c-can’t say I’ve n-n-noticed.”

Martin rubbed his hand up and down Jon’s bicep, earning a frustrated hiss from Jon. Martin was about to pull back, but Jon, in one sharp move, grabbed his wrist and wrapped it around his chest until they were well and truly cuddling.

_ Not  _ cuddling. Combining their resources, like Jon said. Sharing warmth. With Jon’s back pressed flush to Martin’s chest and it was  _ fine _ . Martin was an adult; he could be an adult about this.

Oh, but he didn’t feel cold at all anymore, and his stomach  _ writhed _ with embarrassment at that fact. He’d thought he’d move past this blushing schoolboy act, thought that  _ they  _ had moved past this, but, well, he supposed the circumstances were a bit more … in his face than what he’s been dealing with lately.

It did the trick, though. Eventually, Jon’s shivering subsided, the tension in his shoulders melting away, until he was as limp as a wrung out doll in Martin’s arms.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The only sounds in the cabin was that of the crackling fire, the howling winds outside, and their slow, steady breathing. It was almost kind of relaxing. Like when you’re trying to fall asleep and the rain is pattering on your window. Soothing.

Then, Jon said softly, “This is nice.”

Martin swallowed. Yes. It  _ was  _ nice. It was so nice, in fact, Martin was trying very hard not to think about how so very nice it was. But … Jon also thought it was nice. So, there’s that.

Jon let out a long, slow breath.

“Do you think it's selfish? Trying to be happy?”

His voice was quiet, almost as if he didn’t want to be heard.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because, I keep feeling like …” Jon plucked the zippers of his backpack. “Like I should be dedicating my energy to something more useful.”

“Like tearing up an old cabin board by board?”

Jon chuckled, and Martin could feel it reverberate in his own chest. “Maybe.”

Humming, Martin stared over Jon’s shoulder out the window. It was impossible to see anything outside. Hours and hours away from any real help. At any other time, it might have left Martin feeling panicked and claustrophobic just thinking about it. It was enough to make anyone feel a little bit antsy, right?

But with Jon here, playing chess, pressed against each other under only their coats, he found it remarkably easy to stay calm.

“I think now is the best time to try and be happy,” he said eventually. “Remind ourselves what we’re fighting for, you know?”

Jon didn’t say anything for a long time, so long that Martin thought he had drifted off to sleep, which was good, because the man needed it. Which was why Martin was shocked when Jon suddenly took his hand, gently interlacing their fingers together.

“Is this okay?”

Heart pattering, Martin pressed his forehead to the back of Jon's neck, nodding silently. He brushed his lips against soft skin. Not enough to be a real kiss, but close enough to be what mattered. Jon squeezed his hand.

“If we make it through this,” Jon said, impossibly soft, “do you think we could … talk about …”

“Don’t give me that  _ if we make it through this _ nonsense, you. We’re going to be okay, Jon. I know we are.”

“Well.” Jon smiled, and Martin had the urge to lean over and kiss it off his lips. “Then I guess we have something to look forward to.”

Martin breathed a laugh through his nose, eliciting a slight shiver from Jon. Mumbling a quick apology, he burrowed deeper into the warmth of their little haven.

Something to look forward to …

“Let’s just try and get some sleep,” Martin said.

With a hum of agreement, Jon settled down as well, and while Martin couldn’t say he slept, it all felt just a little bit peaceful, anyway.

Martin blinked awake. With a groan, he tilted his head, cracking the kink in his neck and rolling out his shoulders.

Bloody hospital chairs.

The room had become much darker, and when he turned to the window, he found that the sun had completely set. He checked his watch.

Shit. Way past closing time. He was going to have to catch a cab home, now.

He stood up, back popping, and he winced. He turned to Jon in the hospital bed.

“Well. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

No answer, but Martin didn’t really know what he was expecting these days.

Same as before, he reached for Jon’s limp hand. Same as before, it was so, so cold. Same as before, he tried to rub some warmth into it. But nothing he did would abate the icy, death-like chill.

He really,  _ really  _ didn’t know what he was expecting. A kiss of true love to awaken sleeping beauty? Jon would laugh at him. But he just couldn’t stop trying. Because if he did stop, that felt like … giving up, somehow.

With one final squeeze, he lowered Jon’s hand back to the bed. With one final look, he made his way towards the door.

He supposed it was just something to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr [@athina-blaine](https://athina-blaine.tumblr.com/).


End file.
